The Stories Jesus Told #7 - The Two Sons
Message Description
Senior Pastor Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues the "Stories Jesus Told" message series teaching out of the gospel of Matthew sharing the parable of the two sons.
Message Transcript
We've been working our way through some of the stories that Jesus told, what are known as parables. And there's some debate about how many parables Jesus told. Some would say there's more than 30 and some odd number. And one of the reasons there's a little bit of a debate is the story, like the one you just heard read, because some people see that and they say, well, this is just a shorter version of the longer story with two sons known as the prodigal son.
It's found in Luke 15, where you get the story of the son who spends the estate, basically, of his dad or not the estate, but his portion of the estate on wild living. And then he comes home, is received, and the dad throws a party. Then the older son gets upset because he says, I've been here serving you all this time. Why don't I get a party? And so, the story is really about the two sons and their reactions to the father or to God. It's really about God's graciousness.
Some people think this is just a shorter version of that, the story found in Matthew 21. And I think that it's actually a different story. The reason I say this is because this story, Jesus poses a hypothetical. He says very simply, that there are two sons. And which of them do you think does the will of the father? And he says one of them basically says, I'm not going to go, I'm not going to go serve you in your vineyard today. I'm not going to do what you asked me to do. And then he changes his mind and he goes. While the other son says, oh, yeah, I'll do exactly what you want and doesn't go.
And he says, which one does the will of the father? It's an easy question. Well, the one who went. And what Jesus is doing, at least in part, is he's teaching us that what we say is not as important as what we do and how we start is not as important as how we end. But there's something else that's happening.
I believe in this story that probably gets to the heart of what's important. And what this is, is this little phrase that shows up in verse 29 where the first son says, I will not. But later he changed his mind and went. And then the last verse that we read, verse 32, we see this, it says, and even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.
Now the word repent and the word for change mind are the same words in the original language. It's a word that's used six different times in the New Testament, but it's part of a larger word grouping that has the idea of obviously changing your mind, changing your purpose, changing your judgment, changing your direction, or even regretting something.
And so, this idea of changing your mind or repenting seems to be what Jesus is driving at because he says one changed his mind and he is the one that entered the kingdom of heaven, and one did not repent and did not believe, did not enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, it is a key question what you do with repentance in terms of the kingdom of heaven for you personally.
I'd like to talk for a few moments about how to genuinely repent, how to turn toward God. And in this story, I think we see at least three elements. The first is this, and that is we need to acknowledge that God is right, and we are wrong. He notes that there were the tax collectors and the prostitutes, two different groups of people, and it's wise when we see Jesus choosing examples to say why these two. He could have chosen all kinds of people to put into this lesson. He says tax collectors and prostitutes.
And tax collectors, probably in that day, represented in a sense those who were the economically advantaged and took advantage of other people. So, this was the issue of economic justice. And the prostitutes were probably the issue of sexual ethics. And a lot of times when it comes to saying I don't want to acknowledge that God is right and I'm wrong, it is along one of those two issues.
It either often has to do with our economic well-being, where we make choices, where we say, I'm going to do something the way that I want to do it and not bring my finances under God, or it has to do with our sexual ethics. And you could also say that the tax collectors were in the positions of power, that they were the people who perpetrated mistreatment of others, and that the prostitutes were the victims. Because rarely do people choose prostitution unless they feel as if they have no other choices. And so, he says, here, Jesus, basically, these are the people who end up coming into the kingdom of heaven because they acknowledge that they're wrong. They change their mind, they change their direction, and they come.
And then he talks about John the Baptist here, verse 32, he says, for John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and yet you did not believe him. Now, why does he invoke John here? Well, partly this is historical and he's pointing to the Jewish people, but partly because this is showing, again, this idea that you can start down the right path, you can act religious, have all of the right answers from early on, but if your heart doesn't turn toward God, he's saying that it doesn't actually bring you to the point of being part of the kingdom of God.
Here's why this matters today to you, to me, wherever you are. And that is there is a tendency for many of us to want to argue with what the Bible says, argue with God, justify ourselves, say it doesn't really matter what the Bible says, because I think this, or I like this. And to leave the Bible kind of on the shelf and out of our day-to-day life and say, I'll consult it, maybe for some big things, but in the day-to-day places that I live, it doesn't really have a lot of bearing.
Paul David Tripp once said this. He said, “Today you will either celebrate God's amazing grace or convince yourself that you don't need it.” In other words, we’ll either come to a point where we say God's grace has so consumed me that I acknowledge that I'm wrong and God's grace is for me, or I'll convince myself that I'm just fine without it.
A little over a year ago, I was in a car accident, and I was fine through it. But my car was totaled. I was rear ended, so I didn't have any culpability and I had to seek and get a different vehicle for myself. And after I got a vehicle for myself, I got a recall notice. Well, if you ever get these in the mail, here's what mine said.
This notice applies to your vehicle. Vehicle identification number, and it had my VIN number. This notice was sent to you in accordance with the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. In other words, we're only sending this to you because we have to. Blank motor company, I won't tell you the kind of car, has decided that a defect which relates to your motor vehicle safety, your motor vehicle safety exists in certain models. And then it names the model that I own. We apologize for this situation, and we want to assure you that with your assistance we will correct the condition. Our commitment together with your dealer is to provide you with the highest level of service and support.
What's the issue? Here's what it says. On your vehicle the engine could fail prematurely. In the event of an engine failure, significant quantities of engine oil and/or fuel vapor may be released into the environment and may migrate to and/or accumulate near an ignition source. Now, I'm not the best reader and understander of all sentences, but here's what I think that means. You're driving a bomb. Your car could explode at any moment with catastrophic engine failure.
So, here's what it says next. Engine failure is expected to produce loud noises. Example, a metal clank audible to the vehicle's occupants, and engine failure will result in a reduction of available engine power. And just to make sure I didn't miss it; it says it again. What is the risk? Engine oil and/or fuel vapor that accumulates near the combustible source may ignite in cars incurring the risk of fire. Alright, so I'm driving around a bomb.
Here's what else they said. Due to the supply chain issues, we can't repair it for a year. But we're not calling your car off the road. So, I've been driving around a bomb for the last year. Now, don't worry. You can leave today when I drive out, because it is being fixed this week, supposedly.
But here's why I read this. Now, if you get that in the mail and it says your car could explode if you don't bring it for recall, even though they couldn't do it for a year, a little different than God where I'm going to go with this, but here's what some of us do with the word of God. We say, that's nice, and we just leave it, and do what we want to do anyway. And you know what would be true about me if I didn't call and try to get my recall scheduled? It would be stupid because it's dangerous to drive this car. I don't know why they didn't call it off the road other than they said we'll deal with a few explosions. Evidently none have happened. But that was kind of the car thing.
But what we do sometimes when it comes to the Bible is we say, God, you stay on the sideline. When it comes to my money, when it comes to my bedroom, God, you stay out of the details of my life. You deal with the eternity stuff, leave me with what I want to do. And what we're missing at that point is a belief and a trust in who God is and saying, God, you're right and I'm wrong.
So, repentance is saying and acknowledging that God is right and we're wrong, but it's also turning away from sin and turning toward God, because this is part and parcel of what this word means to repent. It's to change directions, to acknowledge something and change our judgment about something. And it's possible sometimes to acknowledge that we're wrong without changing behavior.
Sometimes we'll just get stuck on words and we'll get stuck with the definitions. I read a book a few years ago by Jerry Bridges called Respectable Sins, and his book wasn't about sins that are respectable in a good sense, but he's saying they're the sense that often we look at and say even in a church community, they're not really seen as being that bad.
He has a chapter on a dozen plus issues here, just a few. He talks about anxiety and what happens when it comes to anxiety as some of us feel like it just is what it is. There's nothing I can do about it. But he says and makes the case that anxiety is a failure to trust God and to accept what God has chosen to do in our lives. He talks about thankfulness, how this is taking for granted the good things that God has given us and always demanding more. How we will sometimes accept anger in our lives. Where we'll say that we have the right to be angry and will be displeased with slights or hardships or maybe envy, wanting other people's lives.
What happens when we get to a point where we start to simply say, you know what, these issues aren't really issues, is we're not turning away from them, toward God. What we're doing instead is we're saying I'm just going to kind of live with this. But it would be a mistake ultimately to see sin as simply a list of things to avoid. There are things that God calls us to avoid, but the essence of sin is much bigger than that. It's worshiping something other than God.
There was a speech given by David Foster Wallace at a graduation in 2005. He spoke at Kenyon College. He was a well-known atheist at the time of this speech, and he later took his life because of hopelessness. But here's what he said as an atheist to a class of graduating students. He says, “There's something else that's weird but true in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship and the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual type of thing to worship.”
I disagree with this next sentence here. “Be it Jesus Christ, Allah, Yahweh, the Wiccan, mother goddess, the four Noble Truths or some set of ethical principles is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive if you worship money and things. If they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. Never feel that you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, and you'll always feel ugly. And when time and age starts showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve. You worship power and you'll end up feeling weak and afraid, and you'll need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship intellect, being seen as smart, and you'll end up feeling stupid. A fraud always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful. It's that they're unconscious, that they are the default settings in our lives. On one level, we all know this stuff already has been codified as myths and proverbs, cliches, epigrams, parables, the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping this truth in front of our daily conscience.”
David Foster Wallace points to something that's really significant: it isn't just turning away from individual sins, but it's saying, I'm worshiping, It's my heart of affection that wants and demands something else. Even a good thing that I make an ultimate thing. And by making it an ultimate thing, it becomes something that has too much sway over my life. And what you see in Matthew 21 is that repentance is tied to something. And here's where you see this verse 32 again, it says, “And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”
So, to believe is what leads to repentance. In other words, we don't repent if we don't believe, because ultimately, we all do what makes sense to us. And the only way that we'll repent or turn toward God, turn away from sin, is when we come to believe that Jesus Christ is good, that His way is best, and that He wants our best. And if we don't believe that, then we'll constantly be saying, well, there's some principles out there, they're negotiable, rather than this is the way I'm going to orient my life.
Tim Chester wrote about this, and he said this. “Sin happens when we don't trust God above everything, and we don't desire God above everything.” One time Jesus was talking with his disciples, and they asked him in John chapter six verse 28. “What must we do to do the works God requires?” So, the disciples come to Jesus and they say what is it that we really need to do? Give us the thing. Do you know how Jesus responds? John 6:29. He says this. “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” What Jesus says is, if you want to know what I'm asking you to do, what God's asking you to do, believe in Jesus. Because when you believe in who Jesus is, what Jesus has done, what will happen is you'll, by nature, start to align your life with who God is. And so, our fight isn't to try to say, I must turn away from sin. It's to say I must believe that God is for me, and God's way is best because then I will naturally start to align my life.
And that leads me to a third principle about genuine repentance, and that is we need to continue on the way. So not only do we need to acknowledge that God is right and we are wrong, turn away from sin and toward God, but we need to continue on the way. Here again, Jesus’ point was in part, you can start on the right path, but it's the ones who come ultimately, who enter the kingdom of heaven.
And you know how this is, how you can repent or say something is wrong, but if you don't have a corresponding action over time, repentance means very little. So, if you're married, maybe you can relate to this. Let's just say hypothetically, your spouse was cleaning the floors of your house, and you were working outside getting part of the yard done. And after they were done cleaning the floor, you didn't take your shoes off before you came in the house, and you walked across the clean floor. Hypothetically, let's just say this was happening and you had a discussion, a fruitful discussion about taking shoes off before you come across the floor, and you agreed that you were in the wrong and you repented of you're wrong.
Now, what happens if the next time that same spouse is cleaning the floor and the same other spouse is outside working on the yard, and they come in and they don't take their shoes off. Do you feel like there was actual ownership understanding of the issue? No. You feel like you just told me what you wanted me to tell you, to get you to get me off your back.
And so, the issue is that there's a change, and you continue on the way. And again, if we take how Jesus talks about this, belief means that our life thinking has changed, that we're not simply saying I need to do the right thing and I need to somehow bear up. In fact, I believe that this word belief means to have faith, and it speaks about having an allegiance to it, about an orientation towards something. And when Jesus says this is the work of God, that you believe He's calling us to rehearse the goodness of God, to savor what He's done in Jesus Christ. And when we do that, that's where we find the ability to walk past the temptation to say, I'm just going my own way.
There's a story from Greek mythology that highlights this. It's about the sirens. Maybe you've heard about the siren song. The story comes from Odysseus, who was coming back from Battle and where his ship had to go, there was a well-known place where the siren songs would be heard. And so, what would happen is the sirens would draw the boat and sailors to come among a rocky shore. Their ships would be destroyed, their cargo lost, and their mission would fail.
So, Odysseus says, mythologically to the people who were on his ship, put wax in your ears, and I want you to tie me to the mast so that I can't order you or steer the ship toward anything else. And whatever I tell you, wait until we're past to untie me from this mast of the ship. And the story goes that they sailed through.
But if you think about it, that's what law looks like: legalism. It looks like there's something I shouldn't do, and I'm going to try hard not to do it. Have you ever tried not to eat a brownie that's sitting around, and you just tell yourself, don't eat the brownie, don't eat the brownie, don't eat the brownie. Sooner or later, it's all you can think about. That's part of the problem with law.
But from Greek mythology, there's another figure, Orpheus, known for song, whose approach to the Sirens was to play his harp so beautifully, so loudly that the sailors heard the harp music and couldn't hear the siren song. And in a way, that's a better depiction of what it is to believe. It's to so rehearse, so savor the goodness of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, the work of God's spirit in our lives, that we are not drawn to the things that are ultimately against God's best for us.
One author put it this way, the Christian life isn't about making promises to God, but it's about believing the promises that he's made to us. Another said, behind the accusing voice that whispers look at what you've done is the absolving voice that shouts look at what I have done. And another said, Christianity is not the sacrifice that we make, but it's the sacrifice we trust. It's not the victory we win, but it's the victory that we inherit. And this is the picture in many ways of saying I savor, I rehearse, I believe what God has done, and this is what helps us continue on the way.
Now, the story, is there's two sons, and Jesus’ question is which of them did what his father wanted? And then he says this. “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”
If you have you been here over recent weeks, you've heard us talk about the kingdom, that it isn't just future, but it's present and future. And so, this isn't just a future thing like let's try to get it right so one day maybe you can get in. This is about saying that when you live with an active heart of turning toward God, away from your heart that has allegiances, other directions, and worship God, that that is when you have truly repented and entered the Kingdom of God.
I don't know how you come here today. My guess is in a room this size with this many people that some of us are here, and we kind of know that we're like that son who said oh, yeah, I'll go, but we're doing our own thing. Maybe, just maybe, today God is whispering in your ear, tapping you on the heart once again saying come back, my way is better, and you know it.
Some of us maybe have been like the prostitutes and tax collectors. We've been running a long time, and we think there's no way that I could come to this God. And yet here in plain story is Jesus’ invitation to say it's not about what you've done, it's about what I've done.
And some of us are probably here, and we've been trying to navigate and follow Christ. But there's been at least some areas where, figuratively speaking, whether it's a command of God or something like the recall, we're just saying, I'm just going to leave this over here on the side conveniently for right now. And the call is just to say, do you believe that God's invitation to you is better than you being left to your own devices? Because when you do, that's the essence of turning toward God and away from sin and inheriting the Kingdom of God.
Father, we ask you today to meet each of us where we are and help us to turn towards you. And we agree with the prayer that's been prayed in the church through the Book of Common Prayer for years and years when it says, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought and word and deed by what we've done and by what we've left undone. We haven't loved you with our whole heart. We haven't loved our neighbors as ourselves and are truly sorry and wholeheartedly repent. For the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways all to the glory of your name. And we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thanks for being here. Have a great week.